Your mobile approach can help deepen engagement with audiences

Amy Mitchell, Tom Rosenstiel, Laura Houston Santhanam, Leah Christian,
Pew Research Center,
October 2012
As more people move to mobile, they are increasingly doing so on multiple devices and are remaining more engaged with the news throughout the day than ever before.

Among the reasons news publishers must develop a mobile strategy is to deepen their relationships with readers. As this Pew Report found, mobile audiences consume more news throughout the day than non-mobile audiences. “When people are asked to recall time spent” on their devices, the report says, “the evidence suggests multi-device users spend as much time on each platform as other news users.” That is, their mobile usage is adding to their overall news consumption, rather than simply moving consumption from one device to another. Furthermore, they are more engaged and are better social sharers.

“These people tend to be more engaged news users than those who get news on just one device. They are more likely to read deeply (fully 82 percent sometimes or regularly read in-depth articles on their tablet compared with 62 percent of those who get news on just the tablet), to send or receive news through email or social networks and to read past issues of magazines.”